Moors murderer Ian Brady’s mental health advocate will not be charged over allegations she failed to tell the police about a letter which may have revealed where one of his victims was buried, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Moors murderer Ian Brady’s mental health advocate will not be charged over allegations she failed to tell the police about a letter which may have revealed where one of his victims was buried, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Mrs Powell, 49, who was appointed Brady’s mental health advocate in 1999, was detained on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful exercise.

The letter was never found and Mrs Johnson died last August still not knowing where her son was buried.

John Dilworth, head of the CPS North West Complex Case Unit, said: “After careful consideration, we have decided that Ms Powell should not be charged, as it cannot be established that she knew the contents of the letter referred to, that the letter in question existed or what information it might have contained.

“The only evidence of the letter’s existence was in comments given by Ms Powell to an interviewer and she stated only that she believed it may contain information about Keith Bennett.”

He added: "The only offence that might have been committed by Ms Powell was preventing a lawful and decent burial.

"It is possible to prosecute a person for preventing a lawful burial through a failure to act, but there must be sufficient evidence to prove that the suspect either prevented the burial or intended to do so when they chose not to act."

He concluded: "Even if it could be proved that this letter existed, there is no evidence to suggest that Ms Powell ever knew the nature of its contents and there is insufficient evidence to prove that she genuinely believed it contained the information in question.

"As such, it could not be established in court that Ms Powell either prevented Keith Bennett’s burial or intended to do so.

"We understand that this is still a very sensitive matter for the relatives of Keith Bennett.

"We have written to Keith Bennett’s brother to explain our decision and have offered a meeting to discuss this matter."

His refusal caused constant heartache for Keith’s mother, who had cancer and appealed to him to break his silence before she died.

Mrs Johnson’s lawyer John Ainley, a senior partner at Oldham-based North Halliwell Ainley, said at the time: "She remained steadfast in her resolve that Ian Brady has held the key to this tragedy.

"Over the years she has appealed directly to Brady and through me for him to reveal where Keith’s body was hidden so she could at least give her son a decent burial before she died."

Brady and his partner Myra Hindley, who died in jail in 2002 aged 60, were responsible for the murders of five youngsters in the 1960s.

Their victims were sexually tortured before being buried on Saddleworth Moor above Manchester.

Pauline Reade, 16, disappeared on July 12 1963, and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year.

Keith Bennett was taken on June 16 1964, after he left home to visit his grandmother. Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964, and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965.

Brady was jailed for life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward.

Hindley was convicted of killing Lesley Ann and Edward and shielding Brady after John’s murder, and jailed for life. In 1987 the pair finally admitted killing Keith and Pauline.

Next page: Timeline of Moors Murders

Timeline of Moors Murders

Here is a timeline of the Moors murders and subsequent events.

:: July 12 1963 – Pauline Reade, 16, disappears on her way to a disco.

:: May 6, 1966 – Brady given life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward. Hindley was convicted of killing Lesley Ann and Edward and shielding Brady after John’s murder, and also jailed for life.

:: 1985 – Brady is moved to the Ashworth psychiatric hospital in Merseyside.

:: 1987 – The pair finally admit killing Keith and Pauline and are taken back to Saddleworth Moor to help police find the remains of the missing victims. Only Pauline’s body is found.

:: September 1999 – Brady goes on hunger strike after complaining about being forcibly removed from his room at the hospital to a new ward because of security concerns sparked by a patient on his old ward. He has been fed by a tube ever since.

:: November 15, 2002 – Hindley dies in jail aged 60.

:: September 13, 2009 – Brady begins campaign to be moved to a Scottish prison so he will be allowed to die.

:: March 27, 2010 – A privately-funded search for Keith Bennett’s grave begins. His mother, Winnie Johnson, 76, said she hopes to find her son and bury him before she and Brady die.

:: July 3, 2012 – Brady suffers a seizure and spends several nights in hospital. A mental health tribunal that would look at his application to be transferred to Scotland is delayed as a result.

Next page: Ian Brady profile

Profile: Ian Brady

Even before his evil and sadistic crimes shocked and appalled Britain, Ian Brady stood out as a grim character.

He was born in the Glasgow ghetto of the Gorbals on January 2, 1938, the illegitimate son of a tearoom waitress.

He never knew who his father was and, unable to cope, his mother, Margaret Stewart, put him into foster care.

As a young child he displayed the sadistic streak which resurfaced in a horrifying manner later in life.

He had a bad temper, often banging his head against a wall in rage – and was described by neighbours as a “terrible heartbreak” to his foster mother.

As a child he tortured animals, once throwing a cat out of a top-floor window, and at school he beat up other children and repeatedly appeared in court for petty crime.

The young Brady was fascinated by horror movies, spending his pocket money on going to see horror films over and over again, earning him the nickname Dracula.

In 1951 he appeared in Glasgow Sheriff Court on charges of housebreaking and theft.

He was later given two years’ probation for nine similar charges, and sent to live with his mother in Manchester.

She had married an Irishman, Patrick Brady, and the young man took his stepfather’s name.

Brady picked up his life of crime where it had left off and in December 1955 he appeared on a theft charge and was sent to borstal.

He later said he felt the sentence was not deserved, and the time he spent there triggered his bitter hatred of society.

After he was released in 1958 he began working at Millwards Merchandise, a small chemical distributing firm in Gorton, Manchester.

During this time Brady became obsessed with Hitler, buying records of Nazi speeches and a copy of Hitler’s political doctrine, Mein Kampf.

It was at the factory two years later he met 18-year-old Myra Hindley.

Brady, then 23, ignored her for a year before the couple began their sick love affair.

Hindley became obsessed with him, and Brady grew to love the idea of being worshipped and adored and decided to include her in his plans for a crime spree.

After moving in with her at her grandmother’s home in Hattersley, Cheshire, Brady made Hindley buy a car and taught her to shoot, and eventually persuaded her to become involved in his twisted fantasies.

As their relationship escalated they began taking explicit photos of each other, before their interest turned to kidnapping, child molestation and murder.

Shortly after the pair moved in together they killed Pauline Reade, who lived nearby and was a friend of Hindley’s sister Maureen.

After his conviction in 1966 Brady seemed to accept his life sentence.

But at Gartree Prison in Leicestershire he staged hunger strikes to force the Home Office to allow him visits from Hindley, which were refused.

In 1985 he was transferred to Park Lane special hospital in Merseyside, which was later renamed Ashworth, the home of some of the country’s most infamous criminals as past patients.

Brady, now 74, has publicly stated he would never apply for parole, but has repeatedly campaigned for voluntary euthanasia for UK patients in special hospitals.

He has never show any remorse for his crimes or empathy for his victims and psychiatrists have concluded he has an overwhelming need for control, played out repeatedly throughout his life – not least in his constant refusal to reveal the location of Keith Bennett’s remains.

Next page: The evil crimes that shocked the world

The evil crimes that shocked the world

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are two of the most notorious killers in British criminal history.

Few have attracted such notoriety or public loathing as the Moors murderers, so-named after they kidnapped and murdered five children over 18 months, between July 1963 and October 1965.

The pair were jailed for life in 1966 for murdering five children – Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17, all from the Manchester area.

Brady and Hindley, who were both in their 20s, lured the youngsters to their deaths, sexually torturing their victims before burying them on Saddleworth Moor in the Pennines above Manchester.

Pauline disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12 1963 and John was snatched in November the same year.

Keith was snatched on June 16 1964 after he left home to visit his grandmother; Lesley Ann was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964; and Edward was killed in October 1965.

The couple later took snapshots of themselves standing over the graves.

The bodies of John, Lesley Ann and Edward were discovered at the time of the latest killing, in October 1965.

Edward, who was battered to death with an axe, was found in an upstairs room at Brady and Handle’s Manchester home.

Lesley Ann’s body was discovered on Saddleworth Moor on October 16 after a tip-off to the police by a 12-year-old neighbour who had been there with the couple.

Photos of the moor found at the house also led to the discovery of John Kilbride there later that month.

Brady was jailed for life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward.

Hindley was convicted of killing Lesley Ann and Edward and shielding Brady after John’s murder, and jailed for life.

In 1987 the pair finally admitted killing Keith and Pauline.

Pauline body was found on the moor later that year, but Keith’s body has never been found, a source of constant torment to his mother Winnie Johnson.

Next page: Ian Brady snubbed 2003 covert police probe

Ian Brady snubbed 2003 covert police probe

Moors Murderer Ian Brady refused to co-operate with police when they launched a covert operation nine years ago to find the body of Keith Bennett.

When he saw officers arrive on the ward at Ashworth High Security Hospital in Merseyside, he waved them away without uttering a single word.

Senior detectives at Greater Manchester Police asked themselves in 2003 whether they had pursued every possible angle in attempting to find the remains of Keith.

Following the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to prosecute Ian Brady over his murder, and that of Pauline Reade, the force came to the conclusion it had not and launched Operation Maida.

It was a secret investigation designed to avoid the glare of intensive media coverage which could disrupt the evidence-gathering process.

A small team of detectives were assigned to the case and as a starting point looked at the one obvious possible source of information – Brady.

He was approached via his solicitor but refused point blank to co-operate.

Without Brady’s co-operation they pressed on by analysing the original case file and re-examined the original statements of Brady and his fellow killer, and former lover, Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002.

In 1986 both killers were taken separately to the moors bordering Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire to help the search, and a year later the remains of Pauline were found, but the search for Keith proved fruitless.

Police were convinced the clue to finding Keith’s body – likely to still be preserved in the peat of Saddleworth Moor – were photographs that Brady took of Hindley at the crime scenes. They were effectively souvenirs designed to act as signposts if they ever wished to retrace the path which led to their chilling deeds.

A remote area known as Shiny Brook, stretching up to five square miles, was identified from the photographs and was notable because it was up to a mile away from the burial sites of the other bodies.

Scientists indicated that modern geological techniques could provide a “feasible” chance of locating a foreign object in the moorland soil.

Detectives became excited when specialist sniffing dogs were sent in to comb the area and apparently picked up body vapour scents.

A collection of water and soil samples was then taken from Shiny Brook which showed more than 50 chemical “signatures” of human decomposition.

That narrowed the search area down to a more manageable area and digging took place to uncover what is thought would be a shallow grave.

The search took place from 2005 to November 2008 without success.

It soon became apparent that the chemical activity was unique to the landscape, was naturally occurring and did not necessarily indicate decomposition.

In July 2009, Detective Superintendent Steve Heywood, said the operation’s team was satisfied it had explored and exhausted every possible avenue open to them.

As well as Greater Manchester Police officers, the investigation called on the support and resources of clinical psychologists, imagery experts, search advisers, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists, archaeologists and anthropologists.

Mr Heywood dismissed theories that Brady would not know the location of Keith’s body because of the passage of time, or fears that the moorland peat would have shifted over the decades and moved its location.

He was confident that Saddleworth Moor remained as much in place as it did in the 1960s when Brady and Hindley committed the murders.

“If you look back at all the victims they were triangulated so that he could come back,” he said.

“Serial killers will generally try to use some sort of landmark – a way of coming back to a particular spot.

“They will revisit their activities on a daily basis. That is what they live for.”

He added: “People like Brady know what they are doing. They will have planned everything.

“He will have rehearsed daily what he did.

“It is my personal opinion that he knows where the body is.”

The case was not closed but it could only progress if there was a scientific breakthrough – or if Brady revealed where he had buried Keith, he said.

They would not allow the psychotic killer to return to the Moors, fearing it could feed his twisted ego, but said he could assist by identifying the location using 3D maps of the area.

“If he (Brady) wants to take the opportunity to do the decent thing then we will listen, but there will be no deals,” said Mr Heywood.

“This is his final opportunity to come forward and give the information he knows where Keith Bennett is.

“It has to be something substantial though.”

He added investigators would not subject themselves to the “whims” of a “psychopath” in returning to the scene of the murders which he last visited in 1986.

“I am not taking Ian Brady back on the moor,” he said. “He will not be released.